TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: Ukraine dismantles 5 disinformation bot farms, seizes 10,000 SIM cards. “The Ukrainian Security Service (SSU) has announced that since the start of the war with Russia, it has discovered and shut down five bot farms with over 100,000 fake social media accounts spreading fake news. The network, which operated in Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Ternopil, and Zakarpattia, aimed to discourage Ukrainian citizens and instill panic by distributing false information about the Russian invasion and the status of the defenders.”

BusinessWire: Comtech Telecommunications Corp. Responds to Aid Request from The Ukrainian Government (PRESS RELEASE). “Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ: CMTL), a leading global provider of next-generation 911 emergency systems and secure wireless communications technologies, announced today that the Company has donated COMET™ troposcatter systems at the request of the Ukrainian government.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TIME: Ukrainian Museums Are Racing to Save Artifacts That Tell the Country’s Story. “They’ve done everything from evacuating works of art over the border to hiding objects in safe storage. Cities are trying to safeguard monuments and statues by surrounding them with sandbags and covering statues with fireproof material to protect them from bombing and shelling.”

US Embassy & Consulates in Italy: Racing to protect Ukraine’s cultural heritage. “Russian bombing has already damaged about 25 works by Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko that were stored in Ivankiv Museum, Kyiv. Picasso had called her an ‘artistic miracle.’ Another 25,000 pieces of art were exposed to snow and rain when another bomb hit near Kharkiv’s main museum weeks ago, possibly causing irreversible damage. Ukrainians and others around the world have mobilized to prevent further damage.”

Global News: The Russia-Ukraine information war: How propaganda is being used in two very different ways. “…while information is currently being both suppressed and controlled by both sides, experts say the motivations for censorship for Ukraine and Russia are vastly different.”

Wall Street Journal: Yandex, Russia’s Internet Giant, Struggles to Dodge Geopolitics. “If you thought Silicon Valley had a problem with politics, spare a thought for Russia’s top internet company. Nasdaq-listed Yandex, which runs the largest Russian search engine and ride-hailing service, is caught between its local customers and regulators on the one hand, and American technology and finance on the other.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Waypoint: Russian ‘Loop Hero’ Devs Tell Players to Pirate Their Game Because of Sanctions. “Four Quarters, the indie Russian game developer behind the surprise hit Loop Hero, are telling players they should pirate the game if they can’t find a way to buy it legitimately because of wide-ranging sanctions imposed on the country since its invasion of Ukraine in late February.”

Washington Post: How Ukraine’s Internet is still working despite Russian bombs and cyberattacks. “Despite being attacked by a major military power with vaunted cyber capabilities, Ukraine’s Internet is still largely intact, allowing the millions of people who remain in the country to communicate, and giving the world a front-row seat to the devastating war. Here’s how Ukraine has managed.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Ukraine has been winning the messaging wars. It’s been preparing for years.. “Before the Ukraine invasion, many observers believed that Russia had an advantage in propaganda. But since the war began, journalists and academics alike have expressed admiration for Ukraine’s savvy information narratives and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s effective wartime messaging. This isn’t as surprising as it seems. As my research shows, Ukraine laid the groundwork for its information advantage well before the invasion. Over many years, Ukraine has learned how to limit Russian information exploitation and craft a national narrative.”

The Soufan Center: IntelBrief: Chinese Disinformation Seeks to Support Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. “At a meeting just last week of NATO leaders, the alliance released a statement that called for ‘all states, including the People’s Republic of China… to abstain from supporting Russia’s war effort in any way, and to refrain from any action that helps Russia circumvent sanctions.’ Nevertheless, China’s disinformation tactics at home and abroad reveal that Beijing is seemingly aligning with Moscow in the information warfare space.”

WIRED: TikTok’s Black Box Obscures Its Role in Russia’s War . “Findings by social media research collective Tracking Exposed suggest that TikTok enfolded its Russian users in a vast echo chamber intended to pacify president Vladimir Putin’s government. Inside that digital enclave, a network of Russian accounts posting pro-invasion content somehow kept operating. ‘There was clear manipulation of the information ecosystem on TikTok,’ says Salvatore Romano, head of research at Tracking Exposed.”

The Conversation: Putin’s war on history is another form of domestic repression. “Although Putin’s historical revisionism has been most intense around issues surrounding the Second World War and the supposed historical justification for ‘reunion’ with Ukraine, it has also had a profound effect on another aspect of Russian history that hasn’t received as much attention — the study of Stalinist repression in the Soviet Union.”

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